spent the last several years working for people who are victims of an unfair justice system. singer and activist john legend. listen to his response when i tell him about -- >> he is part of a two-tier system of justice but not in the way he thinks he is. he is getting way more concessions than the average criminal defendant would get. he is getting delays, he's got access to all kinds of lorries that are filing this environment. the length every trial and most people don't have access to that kind of lawyering, don't have access to that kind of concessions that the justin system will provide if you can afford it. >> if you can afford it. you can catch the rest of my conversation with john legend this sunday at noon right here on msnbc. that does it for me tonight. rachel maddow will tell us how we got here and what is broken

about our system. it starts right now. >> i feel like that's a lot to live up to. what it all means is not what you say on the chiron. that happened in the lead-up to the election in 2016, not the election this year, not the last presidential election but the one before that. if this trial is about something that happened in the 2016 election nearly eight years ago, why is it that it's only coming to trial now it turns out that is kind of a funny story.

funny in a bad way because it turns out this case springs specifically from one of the worst and most dangerous revelations we ever had about the whole trump presidency one of the worst things that happened while trump was president, something that for me is absolutely front of mind when i think about what is the worst that might happen in a second trump administration and i will tell you why. so it was almost exactly one year into trump being president, january 2018 "the wall street journal" broke the story that something that looked really illegal happened in the presidential campaign right before the 2016 election what "the wall street journal" reported in that january 2018 story is that the woman on the right here, a porn director and porn actor named stormy daniels, right before the 2016 campaign she'd been paid $130,000 to not talk about what she says was a

sexual encounter with trump. the alleged adullterous sexual encounter is one thing trump for his part denied that it ever happened and still denies it ever happened. but sex is one thing, money is another thing. this was a p and if she got $130,000, if that money was spent for the purpose of the campaign to help get trumped elected, there's rules about that. there's criminal laws about that kind of spending. when that story broke in "the wall street journal" michael cohen denied that when that payment went to stormy daniels that donald trump or his campaign or his company had anything do with the payment. michael cohen when that story came out said he personally paid stormy daniels with his own money out of the goodness of his own heart.

no, no, he didn't have sex with stormy daniels. he wouldn't say what the payment was for. all he would say was the payment was totally legal, nothing to see here, it was all above board. nevertheless, the fbi decided there was something to see. they persuaded a suggest there was something to see as well. they got a court ordered search warrant to search michael cohen's choffice, and they seiz business records and e-mails and documents. and then michael cohen was told he was going to be charged with federal crimes. and thenit michael cohen struck plea deal with special prosecutors with the u.s. attorneys t office in the southn district of new york. cohen pled guilty to campaign finance violations and other charges. he admitted that he had arranged this payment to ms. daniels and also to another woman who says that she had a nine-month long affair with trump. he says he arranged these payments. he coordinated to make sure

these women would get paid to stay quiet about their allegations of infidelity in order to help trump's presidential campaign. now, when michael cohen pled guilty president trump responded by calling him a rat. that'sim nice. when michael cohen pled guilty, he admitted in federal court he hadn't paid out this hush money of otherwise own accord, he admitted in court filings, he swore in person in federal court he'd been directed to make these payments by his boss, by donald trump. he effectively said, yes, i committed this crime, i committed it in cahoots with the boss because he wanted me to, it was all to benefit him. trump was referred to in the court documents in the michael cohen case. he was famously described as individual one. andvi michael cohen attested in

federal court he acted in coordination with and at the direction of individual-1,aka, donald trump. and michaelnd cohad00 receipts back this up, literal receipts. when he was called today testify before congress yous may rememr he brought with him copies of the checks given to him to reimburse him for making the illegal payment, checks signed inen some cases by donald j. trump, many of them signed while trump was in the white house. and it wasp all an amazing spectacle, right? other presidents maybe get involved in a campaign finance scandal, but illegal hush money payments to not one but two mistresses for reimbursement checks signed in the white house, "a," gross. "b," not your typical scandal. we're already in unprecedented territory here. that'sde not the most important

point. the michael cohen federal case revelations, michaelca cohen, pleading guilty, coming clean saying what happened, that left in itsed wake not just a slimy trail of, yuck, don't let the kids read the news anymore. it left in its wake one legitimately baffling question, which was who's going to get in trouble for thisto now? who's the one person getting in trouble for this crime? just michael cohen, really? he'soh going to federal prison r years ando he's the only one? why is that? why is he the only one? you know why that was? we now know why that was. and it's really bad. it's one's of the worst things learned about donald trump's behavior as presidente and wha he washa able to do as presiden. we tell ourselves all these stories now about, oh, thank god there were adults in the room who said no to him, we should be

worried if there weren't edults in the room next time. tell r ourselves all these feel-good stories. thank god thefe institutions he and he wasn't able to breck the american system of government and american rule of law the way he wanted to. really? actually, in some cases and this is one, of them the so-called adults in the room did exactly what he wantsed, and the institutions did not hold. they were corrupted, and there were terrible consequences. that actually is where this case comes from, and why it took so long to get to trial today in new york city. i remember this was a federal case. the michaela cohen case was a federal case. when michael cohen pled guilty, the -- the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, the federal prosecutor running the office investigating cohen, prosecutingng cohen, that was a u.s. attorneyt named jeffrey berman. jeffrey berman is a lifelong republican, appointed by

president trump, he worked on the trump campaign and trump transition. but after jeff berman was fired from the trump administration, after he was fired for the u.s. attorney and sdny, he wrote a book about what happened to him job, and one of the things he described in detail was about to michael cohen case. according to jeffrey bermen who was running that u.s. attorney's office, after michael cohen pled guilty and sentence tad thirty-two years in prison for this crime, president trump's appointees at the u.s. justice in f washington, the main justice, they started repeatedly reaching down into berman's office into sdny toin try to make the whole case basically go away. thisaw is from jeff berman's bo. it's called "holding the line." he says, quote, while michael cohen had pleaded guilty, our office continued to pursue investigations related to other possible finance violations. when bill barr took over as

trump's u.s. attorney in february 2019, six months after cohen's guilty plea, barr not only tried p to kill the ongoin investigations, but incredibly he suggested that michael cohen's conviction on campaign finance charges should be reversed. attorney general barr summoned by deputy, who was overseeing the w cohen case in late februa to challenge the basis of cohen's guilty plea as well as the reason behind pursuing similar campaign finance charges against other individuals. mr. khuzami was told to cease all investigative work ons the campaign finance allegations until main justice determined there was a legal basis for the campaign finance charges to which cohen pled guilty and until barr himself determined there was an sufficient federal interest in pursuing charges against others. the directive attorney general barr gave khuzami, which was amplified that same day was explicit. not a single investigative step

could bele taken, not a single document in our possession could be oureviewed. and if main justice decided there was no illegal batsz for the charges, the attorney general of the united states would direct usy to dismiss th campaign finance guilty pleas of michael cohen, the man who implicated the attorney general's boss, the president. barr's posture here raises obvious questions. did he thinkvi dropping the campaign finance charges would bolster trump's defense against impeachment charges? was he trying to ensure no other trump associates or employees would be charged with making hush money payments or perhaps flip on the president? was the goal toer ensure the president could not be charged after leaving office? wasav the goal to ensure the president could fought be charged afterul leaving office? justice department rules do say for better or for worse that presidents can't be criminally charged while they are serving as president. but if federal prosecutors had

determined that trump had committed these crimes with michael cohen, right, nothing would stop them for charging trump withfo those crimes the moment he was once again a private citizen. and the head of the u.s. attorneys office that did this investigation, that brought this case, hen, says that trump's gu at the u.s. justice department monkeyed with this case, they monkeyed with this investigation on trump's behalf to make sure theto sdny could never never th trumpev committed these federal crimes. this isn't something that we had to worry might happen. this happened. and the h whistle-blower on thi wase the guy who was running t u.s. attorney's office that got monkeyed with. mooefs in a position to know. another revelation from jack berm berman's book when michael cohen pled guilty, they big

damning document they ultimately filed contained that key phrase cohen acted at the direction and in coordination with individual-1, but jeff berman said the document his office planned to file was much more explicit about trump's involvement in cohen's crimes. what's they wanted to say was trump acted in copsert with and coordinated wouldse cohen. apparently when trump's justice department saw that, they were livid. they madewe sdny cut down this court filing from 40 pages to 21 pageses and made them strip out all the most damning findings about trumpam in order to prote trumpin from this federal investigation. when they got done with it the final document no longer said that michael cohen had committed his crime acting in concert with and coordinating with trump with individual-1. instead the final document said michael cohen acted in concert with and coordinated with one or

more members of the trump campaign. one or moreca members of the trp campaign wasof trump. but justice department officials in washington, people appointed by trump maden, the prosecutor' office take that out. jeff berman also says he was ordered by trump's justice department to order prom independent democrats on trump's behalf like john kerry. he was told his office should bring charges against members of the obama's council. after berman refused to bring those charges trump's attorney general bill barr tried to bush berman into resigning.

he even put out a late night pressa release in june 2020 claiming jeff berman had resigned. jeff berman had not resigned, and he said so. he refused to go. and he did that in part because he had just seen what had happened in another important u.s. attorney's office after a total takeover there by trump's justice department. it was b in the d.c. u.s. attorney's office that these schemes went even further. barr in the d.c. u.s. attorney's office had succeeded in ousting the u.s. attorney there and instead installing his own people. that u.s. hattorney's office i d.c. then immediately moved today drop the charges and undue the guilty plea from trump national security advisor mike flynn. they moved to undue the recommended since for roger stone, who had been convict on multiple felonies. this was the same u.s. attorney's office that also folded to the pressure to bring charges against obama's white house council after berman

refused to do it because there was no case there. that case was so palpably weak, the jury voted to acquit in less than five hours. that very rarely happens to federal prosecutors, but it happened there because there was no case, because trump insisted that prosecution be brought forward. one u.s. attorney's office looked into it and said, are you kidding, there's nothing here. the other one went ahead and did it because that's what trump demanded, even though there was no case. jeffrey berman saw what happened had happened in the d.c. attorney's office and didn't want the same thing to happen in the sdny. so jeffrey berman fought. barr puts out this press release saying p berman has resigned. berman puts out a statement saying, oh, no, i haven't. and there was this dramatic 48 hours berman twice refused to quit, refused to let his office be taken over by trump's attorney general, and finally trumpen fired jeffrey berman. and the victory berman won in

fighting so hard and making so much noise is that after he was fired he made sure that his deputy, are normal prosecutor, s promoted to take his place instead of bill barr just sending trump guys to take it over like he did in d.c. but this is very bad black mark on the u.s. justice department. and the rult of all of this was, you know, terrible drama, scary revelations about the justice department underth president trump. but it was also crucially a federal criminal investigation diverted and delayed and tampered with. the federal criminal investigation into the crimes for which michael cohen went to prison was stymied. and here's a key point. it wasn't just the federal criminal investigation, because while all this was going on at the federal level, the investigation into michael cohen, the attempted investigation of people beyond cohen who participated in those sameip crimes, trump -- the

revelation of trump's personal cull pnlt for these crimes, trump's justice department while all this was happening, they reached down and put the brakes on the whole thing. right. a corrupted federal justice department acting to protect the president despite findings of law and fact. while that was happening at the federal level around the cohen case, it had the effect of stymieing a potential state prosecution as well because new york prosecutors in the manhattan attorney's office were alsoto interested in investigatg andin prosecuting these crimes t hadth taken place, after all th took place in their city. but the feds, right, this was supposedly their case and they asked state prosecutors to hold off while their pursued their federal case in this matter. what we came to learn, though, the federal case wasn't happening. it wasfe delayed and diverted a

perverted and ultimately stopped byd trump's appointees at the u.s. justice department. prosecutors are twiddling their thumbs waiting for them to finish their investigation, which is an investigation not actually happening because of ni corruption. it was months after cohen's guilty plea that federal prosecutors finally signaled in a court filing the investigation was over and nobody besides michael cohen would be federally charged. it was literally two weeks later, two weeks after that quiet admission from the feds state prosecutors started issuing subpoenas for their own investigation. so if you find yourself wondering whyio alleged crimes that happened in 2016 are only coming to trial now, well, one of the reasons that donald trump's justice department succeeded in delaying and ultimately stymieing the investigation into alleged crimes now which trump is successfully facing in a new

york trial. in fact, that effort to forestall any investigation into trump or any charges against him, we can see the legacy of that successful corruption, that successful corruption of it case, we can see the legacy of it in the way the manhattan district attorney has had to charge this case. because one of big awkward parts of this now being charged in new york is there's a crime being described here that's never actually been charged. people who criticize this case, that's one of the major issues they will take with it. if that crime is such a crime, how come it was never charged? right. the new york d.a.'s case against donald trump says these false business records trump created in hisne real estate business, right,es when he disguised thes hush money reimbursements to michaelon cohen as if they were legal fees, these falsified

business records aren't just a misdemeanor, they're a felony because they were created to conceal another crime. what's the other crime? well, the's d.a. has described what he believes the other crimes are. one of the implicated other crimes is the federal campaign finance violation that prosecutors say michael cohen committed with donald trump. it isd an awkwardness for this case that that federal crime was never f charged against donald trump. it wasd only ever charged agait michael cohen, right? but the reason that federal crime was never charged against trump, well, it appears to be because the federal investigation into trump's culpability in this matter was perverted on trump's behalf by trump's appointees. so that is kind of this big gaping wound sitting right at the center of thisou trial. it is a constant reminder that it is bonkers that only michael cohen and o nobody else ever pa a price for this criminal

scheme, right? it is also a constant reminder, you know, of something else and something, bigger than this ca. it is a big, bright flashing warning light about what we as a country should expect in a second trump presidency. you know how scary it is to think about bill barr doing this with ongoing investigations reportedly, with cases that have already been pled to, with sentences that have already been recommended by the justice department after a conviction for him to go in there and get in there and take apart all those cases on trump's behalf because trump told him to? they were able to do some of that. they would very much like to do a lot more of that, which could upend any citizen's life in this country at the whim of donald trump. right,of we do not talk nearly enough about what trump succeed in doing to the u.s. justice department when he wasus president. hehe ousted u.s. attorneys, he t investigations into himself and his allies kiboshed.

he got the case against his disgraced national security advisor thrown out.wn even though he had already pled guilty, he got the sentencing recommendation for roger stone reduced after stone's multiful convictions. he got the justice department to investigate and even prosecute prominent democrats he didn't like even though there was zero case to be made. that all is worse than anything richard nixon ever did, and he was pretty bad on that front. it is arguably the worst thing any modern president has ever done to the justice department and rule of law in this country. it is the kind of scandal we should be keeping front of mind every day. it isd absolutely the blueprin where they would start to try to complete the unfinished business, right, of the first term iff donald trump returns the white house. that is where this case comes from. right, the tawdriest case imaginable coming from the grossest and pettiest personal

failings, all the while revealing a huge serious problem for this country we've not yet reckoned with, a core problem for our protection of the rule of law, a core failing of the rule of law for which not nearly enough people have yet gotten in trouble. we've got lots more to get to tonight. m talk to somebody who was at the courthouse today just ahead. stay with us. the courthouse tot ahead. stay with us

this was the headline. the headline was "72 hours until all hell breaks loose." this is the headline of the e-mail the trump campaign sent on friday not just predicting what kind of imploring former president trump's supporters that they should show up in new york city's courthouse for the criminal trial this morning. it says in the fund-raising e-mail "if we fail to have a massive outpouring, then all hell will break loose."

again, that went out on friday. did it work? was donald trump able to get that massive out pouring in the streets he was begging today from his supporters? did it work? alas, no, it did not work. this is what it looked like outside the courthouse. you can see there's a few trump flags. there's a lot of members of the press. there was one flag that says "trump or death." there was one guy holding a trump 2028 flag, which at first glance looks like it might just be a call for trump to stay president indefinitely and never leave until you notice the tiny text in corner that says don jr. right, it should be don jr. in 2028, a monarchy of the trump family just like the founders intend. there was also this truck that circled the courthouse several times. this truck appears to be the

same truck or at least a similarly decorated truck to the one trump posted on his social media account a few weeks ago which features a decal we're not going to show that shows president biden bound and gagged and tie up like he was being held prisoner in the bed of the truck. so that was there, but it wasn't a crowd. trump did not get his massive outpouring of trump supporters today. he got a few dozen people, not many. there were a bunch of anti-trump protesters, though, including these folks gathered behind that banner that says no one is above the law. they were there. trump has repeatedly and explicitly called up in his supporters to show up in large number tuesday support him as his arraignment, court hearings and now his first criminal trial. he wants it, he keeps asking for it, which does not seem to be happening which on the one hand feels like a relief in security concerns. on the other hand, it's got to inflect somehow the dynamic inside and the dynamic outside

on the streets is kelly a disappointment for trump and his campaign. joining us now lisa rubin, msnbc legal correspondent who watched the proceedings in the courthouse today. thank you for being here. >> rachel, thank you for having me. >> you are a legal correspondent for us here on msnbc. before that i know you are a recovering lawyer, you are an experienced lawyer. was this an experience in court today? >> partially extraordinary is just how normal it was. i was saying to somebody else today it was a weird swirl of the mundane and extraordinary throughout the day. so we had moments that were blistering in their boringness, and even the former president appeared to be bored by them, and i think that's a generous description. that includes when jurors were reading off their answers to the jury questionnaire, because of course when someone is not reading the questions to them and they're just ticking off one by one what their answers are,

it's not the most scintillating thing to listen to. on the other hand, there were arguments specific to this case and the former president. and specifically listening to the d.a.'s office outline some of the evidence they would like to present and on which they wanted some clarifications from judge merchan was fascinating because it shows you just how thoroughly they have researched this case and found documents and evidence to support the general scaffolding of the story michael cohen has told. >> let me ask you about something that happened right at the end of the proceedings today, lisa. it was right at the end of the day and at the beginning of the day they had had that discussion you were describing about what evidence is going to be allowed. it does give us some sense of the scaffolding on which you say they're going to build their case, but at the end of the day a sort of unexpected scheduling matter came up. trump's lawyers asked if trump could skip coming to court next week when the supreme court is going to hear this case in which he's claiming he's immune from

prosecution. in this criminal trial trump is a defendant and required to be in court every day. he's not required to attend any supreme court case. in fact, he didn't go to the last supreme court case about his eligibility to be on the ballot. it seemed from your notes that you sent me about what was going on, what you could see there, it seemed like judge merchan sort of took -- not took offense necessarily but seemed to react strongly to that request from trump's lawyers. can you explain why that was and what happened there? >> there were a couple of things, rachel, that happened. one, this was the third request from trump today alone to skip a particular day of trial. he also asked for permission, for example, to skip trial for his son baron's high school graduation. he also says he doesn't want to be here on wednesdays because that's a day the judge traditionally does want to hold trial and wants to hold a campaign. and the judge said, look, i'm going to try to take wednesdays off, but if this thing is moving

slowly i reserve the right to call you back on wednesdays. that's more of a courtesy to you and also something i do to ensure i can keep my other cases moving. in terms of a moment judge merchan appears to take umbrage, it's when tod blayne said we don't think we should even be here. and he was suggesting they don't think this case should be heard now because trump is a candidate for president, and their contention is trump can't get a fair hearing here in manhattan because of all the pretrial publicity. he was particularly offended by the accusations, so i'm almost reeling back in my chair. you don't think you have to be here, and then he got quiet. judge merchan is a person who gets quieter as he gets angrier and it's almost scary. that's when he made it very

clear trump is required to be in his courtroom by law. this is state criminal proceeding, and despite the fact he's got other legal things going on including in front of the united states smoertd, he must be here on april 25th. >> your right. there's nothing like a family elder -- getting yelled at some something else, but there's nothing about a family elder that can bring the volume down. i have been there, i know that feeling. that's exactly the feeling i got when you sent me that note so thank you for explaining what happened. lisa rubin, msnbc legal correspondent, our tireless correspondent on this matters. thank you so much. >> thank you. i want to turn now to catherine christian, she's a former assistant district attorney in the manhattan district attorney's office. i really appreciate you making the time to be with us. thank you.

>> i'm glad to be here, rachel. can you tell us -- i guess i'm most interested in your overall impression of how today went, and again sort of version of the question i asked lisa, was this a normal day in court? was this the kind of proceeding, the kind of pace, the kinds of yeses and noes from the judge you would expect in a typical new york d.a.'s case or does this really feel different? >> it was normal. it was interesting some of my colleagues who are former federal prosecutors were shocked because it's very different in the federal system. the judge is the one who does all of the questioning for the voir dire, and it's really much more smoother. in the state system, in new york state the attorneys take a part of it. also in the state system here in new york there's a lot of preliminary matters that happen right before a jury selection like you heard this morning, issues about what evidence the

prosecutors want to bring in. there's also i think tomorrow is going to happen something called a sandoval hearing. what is a sandoval hearing? whenever a prosecutor wants to cross examine a defendant about prior convictions or prior bad acts, they have to give notice to the defense, and the judge will decides which ones if any the prosecutors can question the defendant about. and that will be another hearing which also happens before jury selection. so this happens. and in a case like this where you know you have a high profile defendant who there's strong feelings on both sides about him, it's going to be much more longer the proceedings. so you had 96 people brought in as prospective jurors, 50 of them self-identified they can't be fair and impartial so they're gone, now you're left with 46. that's not shocking on a case like case. according to trump's lawyer 80% of them should have

self-identified and you only had in manhattan only of 96 is not bad. the judge is moving as fast as he can. he's a very fair judge and smart judge, and he does move things along quickly. wednesdays he has off because he's the presiding judge of the planeten mental health court. in addition to this trial, he has a heavy-duty calender of those cases which requires patience and special attention. that's why on wednesdays this court is not in session for the trump trial. >> those pending motions that were handled by the judge today before the voir dire started with potential jurors, they were substantive and interesting. we got to hear argument between the two sides about, you know, what aspects of "x" alleged affair could be described in front of the jury. and we got to hear discussion about whether or not the alleged illegal -- i will say alleged

illegal agreement with this publishing firm, the national enquirer publisher, evidence about that and meetings around that alleged agreement can be brought in front of the jury. it's all really interesting stuff. when we have the sandoval hearing that you were describic, would you also expect that to be for lay observers a substantively interesting thing about the contours and the alleged crime? >> yes. what you see today is how fair judge merchan is. the "access hollywood" tape scene, we all have seen that cannot be shown to the jury. he said it's presidential. however it can be read to the jury. he also said the deposition that was taken in the jean carroll case cannot be shown, too

presidential. the sandoval hearing, the prosecutors are going to ask for prior bad acts. the general rule is anything beyond ten years is considered too remote. so if they ask for prior bad acts of donald trump beyond that, the judge will probably say, no, that's too remote. i don't know what the 13 bad acts are going to ask for. i doubt the judge is going to allow them to ask any questions about the three opening indictments. he of course has a fifth amendment right and there are three open indictments. they're not convictions. the civil fraud trial he should be -- donald trump could be cross examined not he was found liable of falsifying business records why? because he was charged with that here. but he might be liable in the fact the judge found him not credible. you may recall he was called back on whether he violated the gag order talking the judge's court attorney. and he should be cross examined

about the deaf maegz of verdicts, lying about someone twice, jean carroll one verdict and theord verdict defamation. i expect the prosecutors will cross examine donald trump about that. that's of course assuming donald trump testifies because this is a very important hearing. because cases, convictions have been reversed because defendants have said i would have testified but for the fact that the judge told the prosecutors they could cross examine me about every bad act. so it's a very important decision that the judge is going to make. >> yeah, it's important in terms of fairness to the defendant. it's also important in terms of us watching understanding elements of donald trump's past that may be starting to haunt him in court this week. catherine christian, that gave me a really clear sense what to watch for and keep an eye on moving ahead. thanks so much for helping us.

>> you're welcome. we've got much more to come tonight. stay with us. e got much more to tonight. stay with us

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what? but the good news is... xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... that's like $20 a month per unlimited line... i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? a picture on the front page of the national enquirer, which does have credibility, and they're not going to do pictures like that because they get sued for a lot of money if things are wrong, okay? a lot of money. and there was a picture. all i did was point out the fact that on the cover of the national enquirer there's a picture of him and crazy lee

harvey oswald having breakfast. this was a magazine that frankly in many respects should be respected. i mean if that was "the new york times" they would have gotten pulitzer prizes for their reporting. i've always said why didn't the national enquirer get the pulitzer prize? >> why didn't the national enquirer get the pulitzer prize for breaking the big news that ted cruz's dad killed jfk? i mean that really -- you have to admit that's a scoop. look, world exclusive investigation. it's not even someone on another continent, had that, just the enquirer. and also headline hillary clinton was caught on camera.

and at the same time they reported on hillary clinton's secret hitman, hillary hat man. they also broke the news hillary clinton was hooked on narcotics. she's on drugs. and they broke the news of donald trump getting revenge on hillary and her evil puppets. it says muslim obama, little bloomberg, weird kaine, meaning tim kaine. mob connection, shady million dollar deals, gay double life. boy, that really does sound like pulitzer material. that was also right around the time they broke the big news of hillary clinton's ten deadly secrets that every american must know, her ten -- ten deadly secrets. jail clinton now. donald trump says give them the pulitzer prize. of course they should. that was was a publication called the national enquirer gave donald trump during the 2016 election.

today on day one of trump's criminal trial in new york in which he's accused of using his business records to cover up a payment that was to influence the 2016 election, prosecutors asked the judge if they could introduce evidence related to trump's arrangement with the national enquirer during that campaign. an arrangement that didn't just produce the kind of quality pulitzer contender journalism i just showed you, prosecutors described the arrangement between trump and the national enquirer in 2016 as an unlawful conspiracy to influence a united states election. judge merchan ruled today he will allow the introduction of that evidence of the scheme donald trump cooked up with the national enquirer of all places. as a legal matter, how does that narrative help the prosecution win their case? why is that legally relevant? that's next. y relevant that's next.

joining us now is someone who was in the courthouse today, someone who did win a pulitzer prize for her coverage of donald trump's financial scandals, let's bring in suzan craig, investigative reporter at "the new york times." thank you so much for being here. i know it's been a long day. >> thanks for having me. >> prosecutors today got permission from judge merchan to present evidence at this trial about donald trump's relationship with the national enquirer and how he worked with -- basically in coordination

with enquirer during the 2016 campaign to boost his campaign. what is your sense of why this is important to the prosecution's case, and what is your sense of how important this evidence is toward potentially winning this case? >> i thought it was really significant. it's hard to say in this what is going to be the most significant thing because it's going to depend on the testimony, but i thought this was significant because we're not now just going to learn that ami had in a very narrow fact here, the stormy daniels payment, the karen richardson payment and the offered payment to the doorman. we're going to learn that donald trump and david pecker went back years and could be beyond the election in 2016, that they had an agreement where david pecker would do the catch and kill for

stories with donald trump, stories that would never appear, ones we heard a lot about, but also that he was somehow involved in stories that involved marco rubio, ted cruz, ben carner, hillary clinton. i don't quite know where that list ends, but i think we're going to hear a lot more about that relation sp. these guys have known each other for years. they both have very large estates down in palm beach and seem to go back a long time in terms of trading information that went right into the national enquirer and donald trump would help them out on stories. they had a very mutually beneficial relationship for years, and i think that the jury is going to hear a lot about that. >> why is that not a story of biased press and instead it's a story prosecutors say was effectively an illegal conspiracy, a conspiracy to influence the election?

how does money make it a different thing than just a story about a tabloid? >> right. because you hear a lot about the national enquirer buying stories. and we hear a lot of them doing that maybe not in so much detail, but david pecker has already paid a fine already to the election commission because he paid the money to karen mcdougal, and it was a violation of laws of corporations interfering in an election. in this case josh steinglass, the lawyer for the d.a. today saidthrust a deal struck between ami and the defendant to put their thumbs on had scale to control the flow of information that would reach the electorate. and that's what we're going to hear, and that's why he was pushing for all this to get in to really set the table for exactly what donald trump and david pecker did, and it wasn't just these few payments, it was a larger scheme. >> suzanne craig, pulitzer prizewinning investigative

reporter at "the new york times," i know it's been a long day. thank you so much for being here. i really appreciate it. we'll be right back. stay with us. e it we'll be right back. stay with us while losing weight. with golo, i don't need a cheat day because i get to eat the foods i like any day of the week.

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quickly before i go. two live events coming up at which you can come see me in person if you want to. the first is kingston, new york, saturday may 4th at the olster performing arts center in kingston. i'll be talking about "prequel" again saturday may 4th kingston, new york. and then june 13th i'll be in houston, texas at the houston progressive forum. june 13th in houston, texas, tickets and all the details online at msnbc.com/prequel. that does it for me for now. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. looks like the judge will not let me go through the graduation of my son who has worked very, very h